The game was there for the taking, a season was there for the saving, and Eli Manning threw them both away.

It was as if the weight of a falling franchise collapsed on the franchise quarterback of the New York No-Air-In-The-Football Giants.

He threw five interceptions and gave his team no chance to win on a day when Perry Fewell’s broken defense finally stood up.

It was a stunning relapse to the nightmare 2013 season that ushered Kevin Gilbride out and Ben McAdoo and his West Coast offense in.

Deja Blue Hoo on a day when Odell Beckham Jr. again displayed his other-wordly talents and raging will to win with a leaping, juggling, falling-backwards 37-yard catch along the Giants sideline that positioned Manning first-and-goal at the 4 with just over five minutes remaining.

Four picks to that point for Manning, four yards to a one-point lead.

And then: The folly of three futile fades — call it a McAdoo-doo playcalling series — that preceded one last ill-fated pass over the middle for Preston Parker that was deflected by Dontae Johnson and intercepted by linebacker Chris Borland.

“Had five guys getting out, they dropped eight guys, it wasn’t gonna be a clean-picture throw,” Manning said after 49ers 16, Giants 10, “but tried to fit it to Parker, maybe coulda scrambled a little bit more and hit Rueben [Randle] on the outside, but they had things covered up pretty well. I could have run maybe, or tried something else.

“I gotta do better. I gotta be better protecting the ball, making better decisions, and throwing the ball more accurately.”

He had thrown only six interceptions through nine games, stood tall above the rubble of teammates lacking pride, passion, heart, toughness, take your pick.

The marshmallow blocking is not on him, the absence of a running game and failure to call a quarterback sneak on a failed fourth-and-inches Rashad Jennings plunge is not on him, the decision to not kick a field goal with plenty of time left instead of fading away at the goal- line is not on him.

When your rookie offensive coordinator isn’t helping you, when your head coach says “maybe in hindsight we should have run it,” instead of fading away at the goal-line, when no one other than your rookie No. 1 draft choice is helping you, it was inevitable that Manning would find himself stranded on Eli Island.

The first fade, on the right side of the end zone for the 5-foot-11 Beckham, had no chance. A run should have been called here, even if it looked difficult. Manning was asked about a pick play for the back of the end zone and said:

“One of ’em, we had kind of a pick play called, a rollout, but they were doubling Odell and keeping a lot of guys to that side, had one-on-one to Rueben, so took that one-on-one.”

Incomplete to the left side of the end zone for Randle.

Timeout.

“Just talking about what play we wanted to run, whether we could run the ball right there and try to sneak in,” Manning said. “They didn’t give us the run.”

The third fade, for the left corner of the end zone, was for 6-foot-5 Larry Donnell.

“I gotta throw the ball a little further out there so he can make a little easier catch on him right there,” Manning said.

Donnell had his hands on the ball, but dropped it when he hit the ground hard as he was upended by Eric Reid.

Borland had undercut Beckham for the first interception to set up a Phil Dawson field goal.

“Thought I could get it in there. Guy jumped it pretty well,” Manning said.

Interception No.2, intended for Randle, came from the 49ers’ 17.

“The corner jumped it, and tried to pull it back, and just couldn’t pull it back enough, and it kind of slipped out and went to the linebacker,” Manning said.

Interception No. 3 was a deep left overthrow for Randle.

“I don’t know if I just overthrew it, I kinda was on the ground on that one so I didn’t really see how it all finished up,” Manning said.

Interception No. 4 was a short out for Randle from the 49ers 32 with 9:40 left.